Blitz, Prime, Detonate - Ember tweaks (non-rework)

[Terrornaut]

I've been playing Ember for a very long time, with most of the gear out there, vs all enemies in all missions from low levels up to multiple hours in survival, all save for Eid hunting.  She's got strengths, weaknesses, and strengths that a ton of people don't seem to realize are there whatsoever or actively avoid. While I could cook up another long and extremely detailed analysis video, nobody has time for that.  Ember is not in a horrible place, but, she has a mess of a kit and the demands for playing her well pull her in almost all directions buildwise and take good use and knowledge of most mechanics to get the most out of her kit, whether in low level or post sortie level content.  Her kit is currently redundant, doesn't compliment itself or her styles well, but can still be effective. It needs work, and honestly with the most recent changes, the change to fireball was really the best thing to come out of it (napalm mainly).

 

The purpose of these additions/couple changes is to move Ember's kit more towards being able to deal damage and CC when spending energy/ammunition/distance to get effective, complimentary results.  Her survivability comes through offense and mobility, but it is not well rewarded in her kit currently.

Also just keep in mind, while I'm pretty good with numbers and timings, still, take these numbers with a grain of salt and just keep the concepts in mind as the main thing to focus on.  You can skip down to the TLDR Summary at the end if you really want to, but, to make judgements without knowing the reasoning behind it :/

What I'm looking to do:
Overall I'm looking to make her kit more attractive, active, and interactive overall, without forced synergies and instead additional options that can flow naturally in combat and in her kit.  A little bit more destructive, also - not just in numbers (yes those too though), but in feel.

What I'm not looking to do:
I'm not trying to make her tanky or bring back overheat (DE has said no), add Nidus stack mechanisms or %hp modifiers (she doesn't need them and exploit/game bypass potential would be crazed), or give her entirely new abilities/entirely change her abilities but keep the name.  I'm not looking to replace abilities, add vfx or other assets, or remove functionality.

Here we go:

Fireball

Current Functionality: Launch a projectile that benefits from power strength and weapon damage enhancing buffs. Can headshot. 100% fire proc.  Will inflict damage with proc chance in an aoe from impact.  Impact leaves behind 100% fire proc cloud that lasts 10 seconds with minimal damage and a size that scales with power strength.  Can charge ability for a long time to do 2x damage and 2x size napalm cloud for 2x cost.

Additions:

-Additional fireballs cast at enemies afterwards will consume heat procs if present, inflicting a stagger proc while exploding the individual target and dealing 50% (scales with power strength) of the remaining heat dot damage in one attack.  Not suggesting blast procs on normal casts on impacted enemy due to disruption of future headshot casts.

-Reduce recast delay from 0.5s to 0.225 sec. Let us blast our energy away at high speed if we choose.  Its fun to ki blast, and more damage is fun.  Goes from 2 potential casts per sec to 4.
-Charge time reduced to 2 seconds base, and at full charge it knocks down enemies. Or to make it a little more controllable, after 50% charge (so you have to commit a little to it), it will knock down enemies at half its aoe, or at full charge it will knock down enemies in its entire blast area.  The napalm is not affected.

Commentary:

Spoiler

 

The addition of consuming and detonating heat procs allows more worthwhile casting of fireball, placing her more into an actual cast dependent/benefitting state that pays off at all levels due to being able to apply heat procs with wof or weapons and then detonate heat procs after the initial panic CC effect expires.  This will increase Ember's damage output at any level and further supplement her ability to decimate targets with certain setups.  It makes fireball much more satisfying to cast and would make Ember one of a few frames that would often cast their slot 1 ability to worthwhile effect. Essentially, if you're lighting enemies on fire with a melee weapon with some combo stacks, or a ground finisher, and then fireball them, they won't be burning anymore but a portion of all that boosted heat damage will be detonated on the enemy instantly instead of in the remaining 7 sec.  This will scale with your gear, everywhere, always.

 

Also, the charge time is problematic and far too slow for its payoff, or for Warframes's combat demands (with a frame that you can't just stand around and be immortal with anyway).  The charge mechanic is not effective fun nor is it cool fun currently.  A full charge is a slow building luxory that just doesn't match the pace of action.  The addition of the knockdown though on the charged blast makes you pay a little more for added functionality, so it should feel a little more devastating.

FF augment is simple QoL - I'm not sure if it was ever tweaked to buff allies in the blast area already or not but it would be much more convenient.  It does eliminate the need to choose how to spend your energy on what person yes, but, it also makes Ember much more attractive for those who want to play the party buffer role that she can accomplish if built to do so.

 

Some numbers for those interested

Spoiler

 

Here are some sample numbers to play around with. 

Note:

-Fire proc does 50% of initial damage every second for 7 seconds, or, a fire proc inflicts 350% damage over 7 seconds.  What this addition would do is make you inflict that damage much quicker (if you had 200% power strength).

 

Example Spittyrawr gun = 200 heat damage dealt and deals a fire proc for 100 heat damage every second for 7 seconds.  

 

200 heat damage caused fire proc - What happens normally, as well as damage with detonation.

Second 1 + 100 heat = 300 heat damage

Second 2 + 100 heat = 400 heat damage. Detonate for + 300 heat damage.

Second 3 + 100 heat = 500 heat damage. Detonate for + 200 heat damage.

Second 4 + 100 heat = 600 heat damage. Detonate for + 150 heat damage.

Second 5 + 100 heat = 700 heat damage. Detonate for + 100 heat damage.

Second 6 + 100 heat = 800 heat damage. Detonate for + 50 heat damage.

Second 7 + 100 heat = 900 heat damage. byebyefire

 

240 power strength (what I usually run with)

Detonate for +120% of remaining heat damage

 

200 heat damage caused fire proc

Second 1 + 100 heat = 300 heat damage

Second 2 + 100 heat = 400 heat damage. Detonate for + 600 heat damage.

800 heat damage after 2 or 3 seconds.  800 vs 400 or so damage after 2 seconds normally, or 900 heat damage if the dot ran its full course for 7 seconds

 

On a headshot detonation after 2 sec that would be 1600.  with accelerant + headshot at 6.2 that's 9600 damage.  Flash accelerant, which now buffs fireball damage and would thus buff this detonation damage, takes it up to 11520.  This is actually current wof damage per tic (times 3 or 4 a second, remember) with 240 power stength and stripped armor, except this is happening in an aoe, also kind of like WoF, but aimed and for more energy to all targets in the blast area. Double if charged, so 24k hit since landing a headshot with fireball sets the standard and deals that damage to everyone.

 

This is basically how Ember can scale fire normally anyway, except, you can take a lanka, tigris, ogris, corinth, silva & aegis, d nikana, destreza, jat kusar, or something with fire and status on it, hit something for say 100k damage and a fire proc, and wait 1-2 sec, and fireball them for 120% of that remaining fire proc, which is 384% of the fire damage that initially hit it after 2 sec.  More if you charge.  If you have friends to buff your gun damage, like Volt, Chroma, Nova, Mirage, Zephyr, well....you're a very scary person.  Use any weapon that either does a ton of damage with a chance for status, or an aoe status weapon, and Ember's fireball now is respectworthy.

This may seem like big numbers to most that have the common view that Ember doesn't do damage, but currently, to those who play Ember in high levels to deal serious damage rather than meme-Ember on low levels or do nothing but run around with firequake for knockdowns (not even using ground finisher damage multipliers), its not a huge stretch in playstyle, numbers, etc, with what's currently achievable.  When you can deal 8x of your weapon's damage to an enemy that has next to no armor (which may come from stripping their armor in 1-3 sec for an extra bonus), well, things die quick even at high levels.  If Ember's kit is going to be somewhat redundant, this will at least make other choices effective choices that supplement what she does and drive her original purpose forward.

 

 

Accelerant
Current functionality: Stun enemies for a short duration. Add long lasting heat damage debuff that increases damage received from heat.  Increase casting speed of self+allies.
Augment: Flash Accelerant: Increases allies and self outgoing heat damage from weapons, which will increase combined-element damage.

Additions: 
Parkour speed (bullet jumps, rolls/flips) also increased by fixed 50%.

Commentary:

Spoiler

Accelerant is probably Ember's best and most solid ability, and its great at what it does.  While accelerant is straight up tossing oil on enemies, or as one guy (Was it BigPapi?) says, squirting oil in their eyes, it is also a self buff in other regards.  Ember is a lightweight frame, not intended to be tanky, but in this game and countless games (and life, really), the modes of survivability are to either be very sturdy, or fast and evasive.  Ember thrives off of mobility, both to spread damage and to avoid damage.  This ability allows the frame, that looks to be one of the most fit, who also has tenno-orokin-parachute pants, to really move like she can, should, and needs to.  Increased speed is not guaranteed survival - a heavy gunner or sniper can still gun you down mid air after a jump, but it does seem to help significantly.  This would also just be a hell of a fun addition that could really work with her style.  It alone would make up for the WoF area reduction, and negate adjustments (suggested below) needed to it.

Fireblast

Current Functionality: Cast and create minimal pbaoe that knocks enemies down, may fire proc.  Creates a thin lasting ring of fire that damages enemies and has a chance to fire proc enemies.  Increases outdoing ranged damage by fixed 50% - multiple casts stack and grant increasing bonuses, which will increase combined-element damage .

Augment: 100% heat proc to enemies that pass through the ring. Will not trap enemies as they can progress after recovery from fire proc.

 

Additions:
-Increase fire proc chance/reliability of the ring.

-Ranged attacks up to fixed 8m are burned away upon cast.  Effectively, this is a fixed 8m ranged damage nullifier during her downward slam only (lasting < 1 second).  Useful for self or allies, and allows Ember to see who can drop it harder, her or bombards/gunners, or just say no to rockets if paying attention and energy to spare, which is pretty cool, and supports her thematic functionality of effective but short lived behavior.  Not suggesting to increase it for the full wave expansion duration because the exploity behavior would be off the charts.
-Weapon damage boosted increases with power strength up to a maximum limit (500% damage added total, equivalent to 10 current casts easily achievable by a duration/efficiency/nat talent build that will last approx 35-40sec).  Currently this bonus only realistically (significantly) benefits high efficiency and duration builds, otherwise the recent +50%dmg addition is only valuable at the earliest of levels (which make no mistake, is still important, but after progressing past it, having part of your kit be ineffective is not a good feeling).
-Enemies that shoot through the ring and deal damage to Ember have a chance to deal a minimum damage fire proc her and activate her passive.

Augment Replacements:

Thermal Haze: Non accurate enemies (all but sniper types basically) that try to shoot through the ring receive an accuracy penalty, and enemies that pass through ring receive accuracy penalty that scales with power strength and lasts 8 seconds.
Wildfire: Any enemies that already have active fire procs and are hit by the fireblast wave spread that fire proc to nearby enemies within 5m.  @Azamagon credit here.
 

Commentary:

Spoiler

 

Fireblast is...not a great ability considering what else is in her kit.  Enemies pass through it very easily even with the augment and are not locked in place or slowed significantly, so it is not effective at area denial unless enemies cannot path through it, which they will then wait. Then, in those specific instances, it is effective against melee units (sometimes) for area denial.  Its damage is poor, except vs large targets where it will level certain bosses in seconds.  It has a wide area knockdown, which would probably be fine if fireball and wof with power strength, or the augment, or both, were not so reliable for short CC already and did something else.  It just doesn't do anything well, let alone the room altering or game changing status that many third abilities have (accelerant is really that in her kit).  I'd like to see it and WoF removed and replaced, but we'll work with what we have to make it something worthwhile.

Honestly as much as I've hated this ability, it, and Ember, are more balanced for reasonable gameplay in a lot of ways than making our experience just wailing on nonthreatening punching bags for tens of seconds up into minutes.  Yes, this form of CC is UP compared to radiation from a distance, compared to nyxery or gara or vaub, etc, and probably should be boosted in ways to compensate for its lack of safety, but, this gets into talking about heat which comes later.  Fireblast's damage boost scaling with power strength would support her playstyle and more builds/playstyles and make the addition something worthwhile as opposed to a bone thrown after WoF changes.  
 

Allowing enemies to heat proc Ember with it would make it a little more attractive to actually stand in and around so that she could trigger her passive vs all factions and without using the stat stick, maintain risk since its not DR/reliable tankiness that DE doesn't want on Ember, and allow her to reap some benefit from hanging around the fire ring.

Thermal Haze: Have you ever tried to make out fine details during a heat wave and seen that sweltering, waving hot air effect in real life?  I'd have to ask military friends/family but I feel like trying to get a precise shot on a moving target past one of those heatwaves would be pretty hard. Thus the Thermal Haze suggestion. Well, the 'logic' behind it anyway.
Wildfire: I think creating standing aoe fires would be too much clutter, but, spreading heat procs is something probably a lot of fire fans and Ember fans would dearly appreciate. This mod might need -damage on heat procs spread, but, for a lot of energy, there would be some good payoff.  Flash accelerant an enemy group, buff a full charged fireball or hit one target with a high damage fire proc, fireblast to spread heat procs to an enemy group, then full charge a fireball.  Clean up one or two enemies with ground finishers.  That's a pretty scary combination of damage and CC.  It takes a few sec and 150 energy, but worth it I think.

 

World on Fire
Current Functionality: Casts aura pbaoe that inflicts damage with fire proc chance to 5 enemies, and then inflicts its damage to a target approx 3-4 times a second.  Target may switch every tic.  Prioritizes closer enemies with its individual damage/sec tics.  After 10 seconds, range on ability reduces 50%, energy drain increases 100%, and damage increases 100%.
Augment: Affected enemies are knocked down for a short duration.

Additions:  

Part 1

-On the initial 5 enemy burst cast, enemies are damaged at 200% current damage (800 heat damage instead of 400), and receive a guaranteed fire proc.  Afterwards, tics do their normal damage (400 heat damage) per tic and everything. The fire proc is the important part for what it offers from fireball, accellerant, condition overload, healing return.
Part 2 A

-Base Range decreased slightly to make up for the increase in parkour speed in her kit

-Status proc/augment range remains 100% and unaffected by the drain.  After 10 seconds, damage does no damage after 50% range but does 100% more damage. Reduce overall drain slightly.
Or, Part 2 B
-Remove scaling effect on WoF  

-Increase base damage by 50%.  Increase base drain by 50%. 

-Reduce range to fixed range + a smaller range that scales with power range.  Example: WoF's range is 8m fixed + 5m (scales). 

Commentary:

Spoiler

 

A damage aura and CC aura is important for a character that has no real defensiveness and minimal mobility (though adjusted with this kit) and focuses on area disruption and damage.  Ember is great quickly burning targets down with the right setups, negating trash mobs at all levels with certain builds, and slowing enemy flow with constant interruption.  Wof has always been effective at low and high levels under different circumstances and different setups, but people's problem is that it negates gameplay for others or requires minimal work and interaction.  For me, WoF is like turbulence for Zephyr, Iron Skin for Rhino, or wading through a pack of mobs with Chaos for example - it allows you to CC and disrupt enemies so you can think about a little less while focusing on high priority targets. Its not quite as much of a stroll as turbulence, defy, Octavia existing, etc, but its the same kind of thing.  

The change to WoF here allows Ember to continue to have some safety, but only sets enemies up for other players to kill that Ember doesn't get to first due to the damage fall off but not CC fall off, which also helps Ember stay alive in situations where she will have to severely reduce damage output by hiding, peeking, all while trying to advance or depend on allies to stay burning and rolling.  

Additionally, having more front loaded power means recasting, or higher power strength builds will benefit from that initial cast and recasting, as well as effecting accuracy by inflicting fire procs (fire proc commentary detailed below).  It incentivizes recasting WoF beyond just recasting for the sake of keeping range up and incurring a penalty from that as opposed to being screwed for energy either way via increased drain or recast cost.  The significant increase in initial damage (namely those 5 initial fire procs) combined with the reduced range would allow for more balanced builds as well as shift the help towards survival in her kit more towards mobility than heat procs/knockdown, or for the ability to remain effective whether you build towards range and little power, or power and minimal range, but still make you choose if you want to specialize her build in some specific direction.

 

Heat Damage

Spoiler

Heat damage doesn't get much credit, namely because it doesn't seem to do one thing amazingly like broken slash, cold or radiation for CC, corrosive for enabling other damage (heat), etc.  Its a hybrid status/damage type. It does heat damage, isn't particularly bad vs anything relevant but not particularly great because of lack of damage bonuses (Before Ember). It has a dot that will do reasonable damage over time, much more if headshot, but it doesn't stack with further proc/applications the way slash or gas does, and it doesn't AOE like gas does either.  It provides 2-4 sec of hard CC, which doesn't seem great compared to radiation for example that give enemies a very large chance to ignore you for each other for 12 sec. In Ember's case though, heat damage and the ability to spread heat procs is a form of DR, radar, and passive (and potentially significant) damage.  I feel like its actually very balanced for what it does, but in this case, we all know that means UP in Warframe's case usually.

I'm hoping in Damage 2.5/3.0, or with this kit especially, heat damage will stack/grow with procs, even if its +dot damage on the next tick every time a proc applies but one less tick total (burn hotter burn less time), etc.  I also hope, moreso importantly, that it adds accuracy debuff while its active, after the initial panic, to add a little more survivability and usefulness to the damage type if it doesn't get more of an offensive or CC boost some other way.  These are a number of things that could be done to make it an attractive option when you aren't using a power strength accelerant armor stripping AOE Ember build and playstyle to get through high level heavy armored content quickly, but, I hope these changes will take effect and put it more in line with things like corrosive, radiation, cold.

 

I think fire procs not being overriden by the highest damage proc was fixed a while ago, but honestly don't remember at the moment and every time I test it during something else, I forget soon after. 
 

Summary
-Ember's damage potential is increased through being able to detonate fire procs dealt from weapons or abilities, on enemies with her fireball to consume that heat proc for damage.  Charge speed increased and knockdown with scaling area added after a minimum charge.

-Accelerant increases parkour speed and bullet jump blastoff area/damage for Ember which allows for greater survivability and better damage+cc spreading

-Fireblast has short ranged, ranged damage deletion during initial ground pound animation only, ring damage buffing now scales with power strength but has a cap, ring is more reliable for inflicting fire proc, and enemy shots that go through the ring inflict tiny fire procs on Ember only.  

-WoF now does more (damage and CC) on the initial cast to better benefit recasting and help out either damage or no damage cc builds.  Its range does not scale down but its damage does, range reduced slightly to make up for overall potential speed boost Ember now has.  

-Fire procs from heat damage inflict temporary accuracy debuff.

Edited March 20, 2018 by Terrornaut

[Azamagon]

What, no comment on this? When it's a good thread from someone that understands how Ember plays?

Alright, I'll give it a go:

Fireball
Very interesting with the heat-proc "detonation" thing! With that I'd use Fireball not just for CC, that's for sure.

Sidenote; Considering her Flash Accelerant-augment, don't you think Fireball Frenzy is a bit redundant?
So, just as an augment-replacement idea:
Implosion - All enemies within X meters of Fireball's impact are dragged in towards its centre.
^^^ Simple, but a potentially devastating utility.

Accelerant
Adding parkourspeed is neat, and fits with her playstyle.

Fireblast
Mostly, positive changes here, I'll go through them one by one:
1) Increased proc chance/reliablity of the ring - Makes sense to give it some chance to proc by default (it is currently at 0% proc-chance, if other readers are unaware), considering Fireball does the same effect, but by default. This allows her to get a new and better augment too, which is sorely needed for this ability.
2) While the ranged-attack-burnaway is awesome, I'd rather have the travelling wave (which goes up to 15 meters away) be the thing that does this, so it has a bit of range and a tad more duration.
3) Heatboost scaling with strength would be nice, and would make it have good strength scaling, like the rest of her kit. Considering the damage is additive to elemental modding anyway, it's not as broken as it seems.
4) Enemy heat-proc - I'd rather rework her currently lackluster passive, than to try and build around it.

Augment replace - Not bad, but I think that should be default to the ability. That, or let the ring reduce the damage of enemy attacks which pass through it (not stacking with multiple rings). Yeah, that's DR which I know neither you nor DE likes, but it's at least non-RNG dependant and it doesn't follow Ember around (unlike old Overheat), while still serving a similar purpose to what you suggested. Not to mention, it'd give her more versatilty overall, making her useful to defend targets and such too. Also, it allows her to have SOME breathing room, to let her have some place to rest from needing to parkour like a squirrel, every now and then.

I'd suggest these things as well:
-- Reliable knockback. Currently, it only pushes enemies away if they aren't on fire prior to being hit by the wave (which is rare to happen close to Ember...). And pushing enemies away from the ring is a good idea, if the ring would be more defensive (as per the accuracy-penalty / DR-suggestions).
-- Augment needs a better replacement (as, like I said, I think your idea should in some form be part of the base ability). Some brainstorming ideas:
1) Ignition / Combustion - Enemies struck by Fire Blast causes any Heat-proc they might suffer to deal its damage in X meters around the target for Y seconds (i.e., Heat-proc's DoT turns into a lingering AoE DoT). This AoE also lingers on the target, if it dies while still having a Heat-proc on it. Further, if an enemy which suffer from this augment's debuff has its Heat-proc consumed with Fireball, the consumed Heat-proc will deal its damage in a X meter AoE.
^^^ This is meant to make her Heat-procs do some rather neat AoE, and combines nicely with your Fireball detonation-suggestion
2) Cauterize - Ember and any allies remaining inside a Fire Blast's ring become immune to status-effects and heal X health per second.
^^^ I know, I know. That's more of a supportive and defensive augment, suggested for an offensive frame? Seems weird, yeah, but I feel frames are more fun when you can build them more diversly, rather than just doing "more of the same".

World on Fire
- Empowering the initial cast's effect is a great idea. It feels nicer to be rewarded for recasting it, rather than simply be penalized for keeping it on.
- A slight reduction in base range would be fine, if you could clear out the next suggestion...
- ... you mentioned in the summary that the range doesn't fall off (that's not very clear from the main text btw), but do you mean that the damage gets shifted over the duration, or does it simply have the damage falloff immediately upon cast? If so, does the penalty apply to the 5 initial bursts, or do they ignore the falloff-penalty? Did you leave the "growth"-effect of damage and energycost intact? I'd like some clarity in what you mean here.

No matter what you are suggesting, I agreed with everything except keeping the current buildup-effect's damage+energycost increases, I feel the general damage and energycost should remain the same at all times. Shifting the damage after some time (i.e. stronger close to Ember, weak far away) though, that'd be fine.

Passive
You let this remain as is, but I find it a really, really unfitting passive for Ember. The passive should fit the playstyle, or complement it. Currently, it promotes a squishy 'frame to be mildly suicidal!
What it DOES try to help, mainly thinking of the energyregen here, is something I think the passive should cater towards (considering she has a playstyle which requires constant casting of her abilities). So why not change it so it better fits here offensive style? Something like this:

"Every time an enemy is ignited, Ember gains 2 Energy."
That might be too good *shrugs*. But something along those lines seems to be in order to me.

[Blackgimli]

I love this rework idea and @Azamagon suggestions improve it a bit especially his thoughts on the passive. I really never understood why a frame all about fire would take damage from fire procs.

[Terrornaut]

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

2) While the ranged-attack-burnaway is awesome, I'd rather have the travelling wave (which goes up to 15 meters away) be the thing that does this, so it has a bit of range and a tad more duration.

I considered that, but it would be incredibly abuseable if that were the case.  Its too much distance to negate damage I feel, even if it maybe 1-2 seconds long.  It could lead to some really dumb 'gameplay' lol. You know us WF players.  For the entire wave to be projectile-deleting, there'd have to be a recast time/cooldown or longer animation or something to balance it out to be within reason.

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

Augment replace - Not bad, but I think that should be default to the ability. That, or let the ring reduce the damage of enemy attacks which pass through it (not stacking with multiple rings). Yeah, that's DR which I know neither you nor DE likes, but it's at least non-RNG dependant and it doesn't follow Ember around (unlike old Overheat), while still serving a similar purpose to what you suggested. Not to mention, it'd give her more versatilty overall, making her useful to defend targets and such too. Also, it allows her to have SOME breathing room, to let her have some place to rest from needing to parkour like a squirrel, every now and then.

While I'd like it also to be a part of the ability, DE is a little funny with the usefulness/strength of augments. Some are....fire fright, others are firequake, razorwing blitz, regen molt. I didn't want to go too crazy.  And don't get me wrong, I wouldn't complain at all if we got overheat back - Gara got it with a kit that is just as offensive oriented if you don't build power strength, while having major cc and defense, so, clueless shrug to all that.  But I specifically stood away from suggesting DR, even if evasion is similar in outcome, but still more of a chance of something going wrong - so you can't safely and comfortably rely on it.  DE likely wants her to rely on her offense for survivability and defense from allies to keep going.

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

1) Ignition / Combustion - Enemies struck by Fire Blast causes any Heat-proc they might suffer to deal its damage in X meters around the target for Y seconds (i.e., Heat-proc's DoT turns into a lingering AoE DoT). This AoE also lingers on the target, if it dies while still having a Heat-proc on it. Further, if an enemy which suffer from this augment's debuff has its Heat-proc consumed with Fireball, the consumed Heat-proc will deal its damage in a X meter AoE.
^^^ This is meant to make her Heat-procs do some rather neat AoE, and combines nicely with your Fireball detonation-suggestion
2) Cauterize - Ember and any allies remaining inside a Fire Blast's ring become immune to status-effects and heal X health per second.
^^^ I know, I know. That's more of a supportive and defensive augment, suggested for an offensive frame? Seems weird, yeah, but I feel frames are more fun when you can build them more diversly, rather than just doing "more of the same".

Healing would be cool, but I highly doubt they want it on her, so I haven't bothered to suggest it.  Also, Ember always providers 1 status at least, so people can run healing return - or at least Embers can.  I don't even run defensive/health mods most of the time, and have a kavat that generally heals me in one swing.  Reliable armor stripping of big targets from the pokemon make things things extremely useful.

Also considered spreading heat procs in an aoe.  I held back though because I feel like that converges on Saryn's one unique mechanic, and while many abilities of course are shared between frames, some do have their unique headlining abilities.  It makes me think of venom/shield polarize.  Shield polarize was kind of crazy, and while this wouldn't be as crazy, it might be a little savage performance-wise, so I dunno.  But wildfire as you have it? Sure, I'm down with it.  Will add it to suggestions.  This is all hopeful design work and considerations after all.

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

. you mentioned in the summary that the range doesn't fall off (that's not very clear from the main text btw), but do you mean that the damage gets shifted over the duration, or does it simply have the damage falloff immediately upon cast? If so, does the penalty apply to the 5 initial bursts, or do they ignore the falloff-penalty? Did you leave the "growth"-effect of damage and energycost intact? I'd like some clarity in what you mean here.

WoF does 2x damage and guaranteed fire proc upon cast.  After 10 sec, damage is only dealt out to 50% range but at 2x damage.
Honestly I'd rather they just shorten the base variables, but I can see the problems they likely ran into when doing that.  If they just did fixed base range + range scaling with power range, like 8m fixed + 6m (+power range), along with increasing the overall damage 50%, I feel like that'd be better than totally scaling the range down or doing their current downscaling calculations. I really don't enjoy having to play the timer minigame.  It wouldn't be much of a difference if energy drain remained the same and only range was effected.  Its just kind of weird?  But...I tried to keep from disturbing the current functionality too much.

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

"Every time an enemy is ignited, Ember gains 2 Energy."

This was a suggestion from a bunch of us a while back before they got to Ember's passive.  I'd of course prefer it, even if it had a limitation that the ignition source couldn't be from a power.  The passive is actually somewhat powerful among most passives, just gated behind a bit of ridiculousness/rarity.  If we had shield gating, ie 1 sec of invuln if shield broken or something, and vfx to accompany its activation, this would feel as badass as it is.  Still, I'll always be a little mad about Loki getting...whoa...enhanced wall latch @_@

But the ways to trigger it are absurd and lethal, as we all know, or remove an effective primary if you go with a status -damage javlok.

I'm just trying to get the most positive change to performance with the least amount of time/work/resources...though I could see calculations for enemies triggering Ember's passive if they shoot through the fire ring being a little weird.  But...mutalist orb?  Volt shield?  Fireblast?  That accursed snow globe?  Still seems like it should be possible.

As far as the frame taking damage from their own element, while I can see having DR to an element make sense, I can also understand various reasons why they've not given the elemental frames ele DR, so its not something I'm going to fuss. I will say though that the only times I ever really want to put defensive mods on Ember are antitoxin/fire dr/the nightmare -stat duration mod, because of infested, or if I happen to not see a hyekka lady or scorch in time.

Thanks for the input guys

[Andaius]

Her passive wouldn't be bad at all if say your abilities left temporary fire on the ground when used. IE Fireball on ground once effect is over left a small fire around for a few seconds for you to Walk over or interact with and "absorb" for energy. I like the Idea of damage reduction on WoF the further away the Ember is. It works in that the Ember is the source of the heat and it get more and more dangerous to get close to her. I also agree that fireblast flame wave acts as a "expanding shield" of sorts to stop enemy projectiles. It feed into to how fireblast fits into her kit too as a ability that makes a hole for her to breath so to speak.

[Djego27]

I like the idea of Fireball consuming the dot for instant damage. I think I even suggested something like this myself with a WoF change that cuts base damage to 50 and instead allows 5% fire damage you deal against added to the dot.

More movement speed on accelerant would be a nice touch. I would be a big fan of giving it 10% more base status chance to Embers weapons to make more weapons on ember more suited for high level. Then again I tossed this mostly given DE just raises damage on everything with the secondary shotgun rework and now with the general weapon rework. It would be silly with that changes.

Removing rockets with Fire blast would be cool, even if the problem is that you are mostly not shot from the front so you do not see it coming, else you could just roll(for the damage reduction) or jump over it if you have the space on the map. The issue with basic mechanics on getting shot is that it is subject to enemy damage scaling what leads to one hit kills at higher levels. 

As for the agument suggestions:

Acuracity debuff is hit and miss, given it would be probably to strong or to weak, meaning that you never get hit or it does not provide the protection to be worth the slot.

Wildfire, would most likely take to much energy and time to set up at high levels when you need the damage outside of running off trinity support.

I believe the current fire damage buff would have been a very powerful augment, not really sure why it was added at base, given Ember given more damage around a static target is quite a viable choice compared to something with duration on accelerant what works far better on the move. The amount of fire damage buffs on Ember by now is already questionable, especially combined with the recent changes where nearly all weapons have a lot of status and older weapons that required status to work like the boar prime just gets incredible high damage buffs for not good reason.

Fire blast should still have the full ring on fire to more act like snow globe vs infested for slowing targets down that try to pass it to be placed on choke points or around defence targets to give you more room for moving around to do damage instead of focusing on melee units(like the first few units in next to every defence in the game). 

WoF

Making it just damage falloff instead of full range reduction would have been logical and most likely the thing DE would have done assuming it is not about switching it one and off. Simply put, I assume DE wanted to go back where this mechanic was in place without the duration timer, not because it was less powerful back then(because it was not at all), but it had no appeal to the masses back in the days. So adding more benefits to turn it on and off is most likely the thing they might add. 

In my personal opinion damage falloff is just as effective if the goal is to prevent low level nuking, since it does the same thing for AOE killing at lower levels.

I probably would have reduced WoF damage to 50 at base and allowed 5% of the fire damage done to the target added to the fire dot(if one is on the target). This would have fixed low level AOE nuking, makes status weapons for refreshing the dot more useful and making newer player more aware where Embers damage comes from. This also would synergise well with fireball consuming the dots.  

[RealPandemonium]

I really like the Fire Blast section.  It's pretty silly that there's a whole augment that, all it does is give the fire ring 100% proc chance. 

Fire Blast also used to reliably proc a strong DoT before they added the flame wave, which would do a lot of damage due to auto-headshot (older bug with explosions) and further x2 damage (status effects on headshots used to get an extra x2 multiplier, the way critical headshots get now,) on top of trapping enemies in the fire ring for even more damage over time.  The flame wave is cool, but I wish the fire ring mattered; as it stands now it's pretty much orphaned content.  

I don't think the damage boost needs to be affected by strength, though; the biggest issue with selfishly using/stacking Fire Blasts now is that the animation is long and clunky. 

 

While we're at it, can WoF get its own animation and sounds back?  Used to look and sound great, but patches slowly eroded its "punch" and replaced its animation with a truncated version of Fire Blasts'.

Edited March 25, 2018 by RealPandemonium

[Terrornaut]

On 3/24/2018 at 1:14 PM, Djego27 said:

Removing rockets with Fire blast would be cool, even if the problem is that you are mostly not shot from the front so you do not see it coming, else you could just roll(for the damage reduction) or jump over it if you have the space on the map. The issue with basic mechanics on getting shot is that it is subject to enemy damage scaling what leads to one hit kills at higher levels. 

As for the agument suggestions:

Acuracity debuff is hit and miss, given it would be probably to strong or to weak, meaning that you never get hit or it does not provide the protection to be worth the slot.

Wildfire, would most likely take to much energy and time to set up at high levels when you need the damage outside of running off trinity support.

I believe the current fire damage buff would have been a very powerful augment, not really sure why it was added at base, given Ember given more damage around a static target is quite a viable choice compared to something with duration on accelerant what works far better on the move. The amount of fire damage buffs on Ember by now is already questionable, especially combined with the recent changes where nearly all weapons have a lot of status and older weapons that required status to work like the boar prime just gets incredible high damage buffs for not good reason.

Fire blast should still have the full ring on fire to more act like snow globe vs infested for slowing targets down that try to pass it to be placed on choke points or around defence targets to give you more room for moving around to do damage instead of focusing on melee units(like the first few units in next to every defence in the game). 

Dodging is definitely possible and effective, and what we have to do to survive currently since (those corrupted bombards and their 180 degree curving rockets..).  Fireblast having this change basically gives it a small window of immunity, ie iframes, and gives some kind of momentary party aid (so you can at least survive casting it).  It helps turn Fireblast into a decent fight reset/defensive ability, without granting it reliable, tanky defense.  Its a momentary defense that requires energy, which feels like it goes with Ember's gameplay theme.  The accuracy debuff I think goes with this and Ember's risky style. You might get hit, you might not. You might have a rocket detonate at your feet and well...you don't get to walk from that.

Wildfire, the way it would spread and scale, could potentially add up to a lot of damage.  For that setup and cost, and the way it'd work, it'd be worth the time/energy I strongly feel, which honestly, there should probably be more high payoffs for more energy among frames rather than...100 energy base or 25 energy base and boom everything is good and dead.  Saryn's execution was cumbersome and kind of unwieldy or not enough payoff, but along the right idea I feel.  
 

On 3/25/2018 at 3:46 AM, RealPandemonium said:

on top of trapping enemies in the fire ring for even more damage over time.  The flame wave is cool, but I wish the fire ring mattered; as it stands now it's pretty much orphaned content.  

I don't think the damage boost needs to be affected by strength, though; the biggest issue with selfishly using/stacking Fire Blasts now is that the animation is long and clunky. 

Ah fireblast, an Eternity ago, when it was useful. Damage 1.0

As far as the damage boost goes, Just rewarding one solid build instead of the entire frame, eh?

[RealPandemonium]

2 hours ago, Terrornaut said:

As far as the damage boost goes, Just rewarding one solid build instead of the entire frame, eh?

Not really about builds; consistency with how Volt Shield works is fine IMO.  Making it scale with powerstr would also make stacking shields hilariously strong.

[Terrornaut]

6 minutes ago, RealPandemonium said:

Not really about builds; consistency with how Volt Shield works is fine IMO.  Making it scale with powerstr would also make stacking shields hilariously strong.

Consistency yes, but even then, it doesn't make sense entirely.  The latter though is why I suggested a damage multiplier cap so you can't say run 300 power strength with a trinity and nat talent and 10cast those and get mondo loony damage boosting, but, can run 250 power strength or something and cast a few times instead of building to cast 10 times to do the same thing.  Energy = power

[Terrornaut]

*casually puts this back out there*

[Synpai]

On 2018-03-20 at 1:50 PM, Azamagon said:

Passive
You let this remain as is, but I find it a really, really unfitting passive for Ember. The passive should fit the playstyle, or complement it. Currently, it promotes a squishy 'frame to be mildly suicidal!
What it DOES try to help, mainly thinking of the energyregen here, is something I think the passive should cater towards (considering she has a playstyle which requires constant casting of her abilities). So why not change it so it better fits here offensive style? Something like this:

"Every time an enemy is ignited, Ember gains 2 Energy."
That might be too good *shrugs*. But something along those lines seems to be in order to me.

It's actually easier than that.
If anyone's ever played borderlands 2, then Kreig's Fire starter tree kind of just "makes sense"

 

All Ember needs is a chance for her abilities (on cast/damage) to set her on fire. By default she shouldn't take damage from heat procs that's for sure (Heck I think she should heal from it). This would allow her to use her passive, and have a nice flare along with it.

Edited May 11, 2018 by Synpai